sliding doors

the train vs the platform

A perfect corner in my dream apartment. It has taken a lot of me and from me to make this house a home, but look. I’m so lucky to have creative control over my space.

If you don’t already know, Sliding Doors is a romcom that centers around the question; Can one tiny moment significantly alter the course of a life? We see Gwyneth Paltrow’s character and the two ways her life could have played out; one in which she caught the train, and one in which she missed it. Full disclosure, I have only seen the trailer. (I really do want to watch the full movie, idk maybe I'll do so this week.) (I won’t.) But I think we’re all familiar with the philosophy, and maybe some of us have personally struggled with it: am I on the right path? And is the other hypothetical path I could have taken better or worse than the one I’m on?

For a while now, I’ve felt like I’ve been on the wrong side of a sliding doors situation, though I can’t pinpoint exactly where I misstepped. It’s not as clearcut as a movie script, but fuck, I wish it was. I’ve been plagued by the idea that this wasn’t the life I was supposed to be living. Mine had passed me by at some point. Like I had one stroke of back luck, and that redirected me to walking in the opposite direction of the life I wanted. And even though I can recognize all the blessings (I’m using that word casually here- don’t get triggered) in my life, I can equally feel the absence of everything I want and don’t have. Who has my life? My things? When did I Freaky Friday lives with someone? And are they out there having the time of their fucking live or do they fucking hate it? Why can’t I shake this feeling of sadness? Of stagnation? Why aren’t I happier?

Then I met him. 

But let’s back up.

I hate to keep going back to my last (only?) serious relationship, but it was such a meaningful force in my life, and when it shattered into a million pieces, they stabbed me and lodged themselves in my skin and I’ve had to spend some time and quite a bit of effort taking each bit out, one by one. 

And if we’re looking at it from a storytelling perspective; it was the end, the beginning, the point of no return, the inciting action, the theme, the metaphor. One event was all these things, and that’s why I keep spinning out narratives based on it. And to tell you the truth, I’m not done. 

I thought I had a future with him. I fantasized about where we might be in two years; married, a baby on the way, a bigger car, a washer and dryer. I randomly asked my friend about relocating to New Jersey, in which she replied “Are you moving here!?” to which I replied “Maybe!”

My ex and I talked about how I could watch the baby during the day, then he could watch them when I taught or performed at night. A fantasy indeed! As if I’d have the energy to stay up until 9:30pm teaching, give my students the attention they deserve, somehow have the inspiration to create or perform while speaking in gogo gagas all day. And what? I was going to commute in after a day of exhaustion and spit up and baby songs and host a show called Young Hot Sluts? Then what? Get home super late and immediately start taking care of a baby again? (I’ll write another post about why I will always mourn not having this life, but also how thankful I am that I don’t.)

I only started traveling at 36. I can only do so because I work for myself and I sublet my place while I’m gone. I OFTEN think about how if I lived with someone I wouldn’t be able to sublet, therefor couldn’t travel. Seeing the world is such a gift I gave myself ONLY BECAUSE my relationship ended.

I secretly planned out how this would work, how I’d get everything I wanted, how I’d love having a backyard and a baby and a husband and a creative career and DEEP REAL ROMANTIC LOVE and still feel beautiful and sexy and creatively fulfilled. There would be no problems! 

And then it ended. I had to start over. He kept so much of my old life, the one I was in love with, the one that held my future, and I took my heavy dreams and fading female currency (youth + beauty) and packed it into some boxes. He kept my dream apartment, he kept being a man in his prime, he kept status, he kept control- and I was given the enormous hardship of being a single woman in New York City as I squeezed the enormous rejection into my 210 sq foot apartment. 

—--

But-

Then I met him.